Endgame
by phineyj
Summary: What does the future hold for them?


Endgame

You try to remember a time without pain. In the endless hours of silence after everyone else in the building has gone to sleep, you can bring to mind all sorts of things about your late thirties, but you cannot capture the absence of pain.

True, you were no stranger to toxic two day hangovers and it was a rare week when you didn't have a few impressive bruises from your opponents – or your team-mates - walloping you across the shins at lacrosse, but those were not true pains; merely annoyances. Even the occasional split lip, and one memorable time, broken nose, from bar fights were momentary, fleeting inconveniences and would have been quite bearable, had they not tended to coincide with the hangovers.

You spent your thirty-eighth birthday in a medically induced coma and when you woke up, you'd become an old man with a pain problem, a permanent limp and a shiny new cane.

Your pain has tracked you for the best part of three decades, underscoring your life like an insistent melody, a ear worm which just will not quit. Sometimes it is orchestrated like a Broadway number, heavy on the brass and drowning out everything else around it; other times – you think wistfully of narcotics – it retreats to the far distance, a solo for a soft flute – but it is always there.

You do not celebrate your birthday.

------------

You are tired, more tired than you have ever been. You don't remember feeling this bad even when you were an intern. There was enough adrenalin to carry you through then, and there was an end in sight. You look at your desk clock. Its loud tick echoes in the Sunday afternoon quiet. You pick it up and fling it away in the drawer, where it continues to beat time, reproachfully.

Five more minutes, then you'll go. You open a paper and think about grading it, but you notice a misspelling and don't have the energy to read on. Your skin feels itchy and sore and your left eyelid jerks annoyingly. You could have more coffee but that would mean walking down the hall, and you might see someone you have to talk to.

You wonder how he'll be today. Yesterday he wouldn't get out of bed, wouldn't speak to you or even make eye contact.

You hear footsteps echo down the hallway, getting closer. The sound pauses outside your door. You keep quiet and hope they'll go away, but after a polite knock, Seema walks into your office, a graceful silhouette against the harsh light coming from the corridor. You are supervising her Master's thesis.

As usual, she doesn't need any academic help; she rarely does. Instead, she wants to pick your brains about the case she is working on. You are personal tutor to ten students, but Seema's the best – although they are all alarmingly smart. You are also teaching a half dozen lecture courses this year. You keep asking the administration if they can cut your workload, but apparently they don't have anyone else who's up to date in diagnostics.

------------

Emily comes by to see you. She brings you flowers of some sort, and a new computer game. The game has racing cars and is a two player. You choose the red one; it reminds you of your 'vette. She beats you easily and you can see she is not trying very hard. You think that Emily is much more of a risk taker than her mother. You cannot imagine where she gets it from. And then you think that Allison took one huge risk on you.

Your daughter takes you out in your wheelchair. You do not want to go, but she insists that you need the fresh air. She is right, though you don't admit it. Using the oxygen cylinder has dulled your circulation and left you with a permanent metallic taste in your mouth. She tells you that she is thinking of spending her junior year abroad, perhaps in Florence. You will miss her tremendously, but what you say is, "it sounds like a good idea."

------------

You arrive at the nursing home and ask the nurse on duty how Dr House is today. She looks up carefully from the pad she is writing on and says, "well, he's a little cranky". You laugh out loud, you cannot help yourself. She looks offended, and you apologize and tell her cranky is kind of his default setting.

You are glad to see he is dressed and sitting on his bed. He is playing a computer game, one you haven't seen before. There are fresh flowers on the side table, irises and hyacinths in startling shades of blue and yellow; the hyacinths have filled the whole room with their scent.

------------

You ask Allison if Emily has mentioned her Florence trip. Allison nods and asks what you think. You laugh – what's the worst that can happen, extreme art history? You share a moment. You are both remembering when your daughter went to New Zealand. You absolutely forbade her to go jetboating, so she did a bungy jump instead.

------------

You have an appointment with Dr Fisher the next morning to discuss Greg's condition. You have known Dr Fisher for several years now and you trust him to be honest with you. He keeps telling you to call him Mike, but you prefer to keep things formal. That way you can pretend this is work. He has a big sheaf of test results in a folder in front of him, and he passes them over to you without comment. You read them through carefully.

Dr Fisher sighs and steeples his fingers in front of him on his desk.

"You can see it's not good, Allison".

You nod your head.

"The respiratory tests are particularly worrying. And the rheumatological problems are getting worse. It's mostly just old age".

"He's not seventy yet", you say, defensively, "that's not old these days".

"Well, no," Dr Fisher says, "but he's put his body through a lot – he was dependent on the hydrocodone, for what" – he glances at the front of the file – "ten years?"

"He gave it up after our daughter was born," you tell him, "they made it a specific condition when he had the trans-femoral amputation. He's been clean for more than twenty years".

"But you know that opiates change the brain chemistry permanently, I don't have to tell you that, Allison".

------------

Lisa calls you at work. It seems Emily has been talking to her about her trip to Florence. You wonder whether Emily has been enlisting support in case you refused. You tell Lisa that you are going to let her go, that it's a great opportunity. You and Greg think she will get a lot from it.

"You're not worried about her being so far away?" she asks, carefully.

You know what she is really asking.

"She has her own life to lead", you say, "I wouldn't want to stop her doing anything".

Lisa, offers, diffidently, to pay for Emily's flights. You ask her if your daughter has put her up to this. You can hear her smiling down the phone, and she says no, even Emily wouldn't be that cheeky. It is her own idea, she would have liked to spend a year in Europe when she was Emily's age.

Anyway, she will make sure Emily invites her auntie over at some point. You laugh and point out that she never takes vacations. She tells you she is getting in practice for her retirement. You will accept her offer. Lisa knows things aren't great for you financially and she helps you out a lot, but she is always tactful about it.

She asks how Greg is. You were hoping you wouldn't have to discuss this. You surprise yourself by saying, "I don't think he's coming home". It is the first time you have said the words out loud to anyone. You are crying. This is exactly why you don't like taking personal calls in the office.

"Does he know?" Lisa asks, when you have collected yourself a bit. You say you don't know. She asks if there's anything she can do, and you say no, not right now.

------------

You remember the first time you kissed.

You are working on a case together and it is late, so late that Foreman and Chase have gone home several hours ago. It is your turn to stay, and anyway, you have some ideas you are now following up in the lab.

House has narrowed the patient's condition down to a group of rare immune diseases, but you cannot treat until you know which one it is, or you may kill him. You do every test you can think of, and come up with zilch. And then you think of something else. You test not for the amino acid you have been desperately looking for, but for one of its products. It comes up positive. You head back to House's office. You are nearly running. It is dark and quiet on the corridor outside Diagnostics at this hour and the only light spills out from House's desk lamp. He has a pile of books open in front of him, and is cross checking something from one of them against the information on the computer screen.

You collect yourself and paste a calm expression on your face before walking in.

"I found it," you say.

You show him the results. He smiles at you – an open, guileless smile of pure pleasure at a mystery solved, and says, "I could kiss you."

You wish he would, but he is already limping off in the direction of the medical wards. He hangs the drugs on the patient's IV. The patient is stable, and the medication will not start to take effect for another twelve hours at least, so House scribbles some directions on a chart for the nurses, and you both head back to your department. He does not speak to you the entire time.

You follow him into his office, feeling a sense of anti-climax. He perches on the edge of his desk, and leans his cane up against it. He passes a hand over his face. You expect he is tired. You suddenly realize you could use a few hours' sleep yourself. You walk towards him, about to make your excuses and leave. He looks up, and says, "good work, Allison." It is the first time he has used your name. The lamp is behind him and his face is in shadow. You can't see his expression. You take another step towards him and are shocked when he reaches out for you.

You temporarily lose your balance and fall against him, jarring his leg. He winces slightly but says nothing, instead reaching a hand up to your face. Then his lips are on yours and it feels very familiar somehow, although of course it is not, because it is the first time this has happened. He tastes of coffee and his medication, and you can smell his sweat and yours. His other arm is around you, pulling you in. You are getting stubble burns on your chin, and the wool of his pants is scratchy through your thin skirt. You can feel how hard he is and this makes you feel powerful. "Let's get out of here," he says.

------------

You remember the first time you slept with her. You were working on a case together. It was late. When she burst into your office with the lab results, she looked so excited. You love that about her. You give the patient the correct medication, pleased you have solved the puzzle. You had worked out the correct treatment anyway – you figured it out from the symptoms hours ago – but you do not tell Allison this.

When she follows you back into your office, still flushed with triumph, you feel a lurch in your stomach. This unsettles you and you have to prop yourself on the desk for support. You have tried not to let her in, you know this is best for both of you, but you are only human. You have imagined kissing her on hundreds of occasions but the reality is different, sweeter, more hurried, and she did not look so uncertain in your fantasies.

Later, when you are with her in your bedroom, you are the one feeling uncertain. You have not made a plan for this, because honestly, you did not expect it to happen.

------------

You are on his bed with him; he is sitting back against the headboard and you are kneeling over him, when you notice how uncertain he looks. You say, in a reassuring tone, "it's like riding a bike", although you suspect that's not what he's worrying about.

You decide you are going to have to stop him thinking somehow, because analysis is not what the two of you need right now, so you reach down and undo his pants and take him into your mouth. You know this was the right thing to do, when he shifts and moans a little. Plus, now you can't see his expression and are not worrying about him changing his mind. And you can't see his thigh like this, and that is most probably what is bothering him.

------------

You need to take some control back, so you grab her under the arms and lift her up out of your lap, not roughly, but not gently either. You undo her shirt and then her pink bra. She has the most fantastic tits and you cannot resist sucking one of her nipples into your mouth. You reach down into her pants and under her lacy panties – she is gratifyingly wet – and find her clit. She cries out, quite loudly, and starts to rub herself against your hand and your tongue. You curl your hand upwards and slip a couple of fingers into her, and all at once, she comes, hard, around your hand. You remove your hand and lick your fingers.

She opens her eyes and looks at you, and gives you an enigmatic smile. "I think you remember how to ride a bike,'" she says. You undress each other and you tell her to get a condom from the nightstand. She lowers herself onto you and you slide in easily, enjoying her gasp as you do so. She leans down and kisses you, deeply, penetrating you with her tongue like you are with your cock. You know you won't last long – you are repeating all the latin names of the bones of the hand to yourself, just to keep things going a bit longer – and she clenches around you and that's it, your climax hits you and you come back to yourself suddenly, to the crumpled sheets and the pain in your right leg, Allison's rapid breath warm on your face.

------------

You wake at eight the next morning, and are hit by a bolt of alarm, as you figure out from the bright sun that you must have slept in. This is swiftly followed by downright panic as you realize whose bed you are in and that you are alone in it. Before you can think of any more things to be concerned about, House limps in. He is dressed for work in grey pants and a jacket over a white t shirt. He is holding a cup of coffee, which he places on the nightstand. He sits awkwardly on the bed next to you. "I'll run you home," he says, not looking you in the eye. "I've paged Foreman and Chase, told them we had a late night." You get out of bed and get dressed as quickly as you can. You feel crumpled and messy and you have a sick feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach.

He does not speak on the brief ride to your apartment. You switch the radio on to fill the silence, and then turn it off, because the cheery morning tones of the presenter are making you want to hurl something at the set. He pulls up just outside your building. You know you shouldn't, but you have to ask. "Was this a mistake?" He looks at you for the first time and smiles, "No." He kisses you, hard, and says, "be late for once, I hear your boss is really understanding," and drives off. You stand on the sidewalk for a full minute after the sound of the car fades away, a big, stupid grin on your face.

------------

You are just leaving the clinic on your way up to the Diagnostics office when you get a page from Dr Cuddy, summoning you to her office. You know what she most probably wants to talk about. Your stomach gives a queasy lurch and you have to physically force yourself to walk along the corridor to her office.

The Dean of Medicine is sitting at her desk, speaking on the phone, while making notes on a legal pad on her desk. She has her red wine colored suit on today, the one you secretly envy, with a cream frilly necked blouse and a double strand of pearls. You pause outside the first set of doors. She sees you there and waves you in. She is saying "don't jerk me around, you know and I know it doesn't take nine months to get AMA approval".

You take a seat on the chair in front of her, crossing and uncrossing your legs nervously.

Cuddy concludes her conversation, saying "call me back when you've got a better idea," and replaces the handset.

"Thanks for coming so quickly, Dr Cameron," she says, "I've been meaning for some time to talk to you about your future here."

That's it, that's enough to set you off into a haze of guilt and fear, and you miss the next thing she says, then realize she's just asked you a question and you don't know what it was. You have got to get a grip on yourself, and fast.

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I missed that," you say, as calmly as possible.

She looks at you like you grew an extra head.

"I said, have you considered a career in research?"

"Well, no, not really," you temporize, wondering where this is leading, when your stomach turns over again. You shift a little in your chair, trying to subtly move your arm around a little so you can hold it over your seriously disordered belly.

"Hey, are you okay? You look a little pale," Cuddy asks, looking concerned.

You now have that watery taste in your mouth, the unmistakable one you get right before you spew – you get to your feet, looking around desperately. Cuddy jumps up from behind her desk and grabs you by the arm, frog-marching you towards a door to the side of the room.

_Wow, Cuddy has an executive bathroom, who knew_, is all you have time to think, before you mercifully make it to the toilet just in time to throw up your lunch. Cuddy gets you a glass of water and a hunk of tissue paper and tactfully leaves you to sort yourself out for a few minutes, closing the bathroom door behind her.

Embarrassed doesn't even begin to cover how you feel when you decide it's safe to go back out – mortified would be more like it. You slink to your chair and sit back down. Now you really feel like you're in the headmistress's office. Cuddy looks at you thoughtfully.

"Feeling better?" she asks.

There is an awkward pause. She looks on the verge of saying something else, and then clearly changes her mind.

"Well, what I was about to say before, is that I'm thinking of creating a new post of Head of Immunology Research, and I'd like to offer it to you when your fellowship is up".

You can't formulate a response, but she continues, her tone full of meaning, "There's no rush to make a decision, and the funding's good for another year."

"All right," you say, and belatedly remembering your manners, add, "thank you".

She gives you another of her intent looks.

"Talk to House," she says, "Take the rest of the afternoon off. He can too. Just tell him I'm not setting a precedent."

You get up to leave, feeling quite dazed.

"Cameron," she adds, just as you've nearly made it out the door. "If this is an ongoing thing, those copper bracelets are good for nausea; I'm sure it's just a placebo effect, but you could give it a try."

You nod, and get out of there as fast as you can.

------------

Allison walks into your office, looking flustered. She says she needs to talk to you and Cuddy has told you both to take the afternoon off. "Ooh," you say, "perhaps we'll get every Wednesday afternoon off?" She is trying to appear calm, but you can see from the set of her shoulders and the way she has got her arms folded across her front that she is just barely keeping a lid on her feelings.

You are well aware she is pregnant, you are not one of the country's top diagnosticians for nothing, but you have been waiting for her to say something. However, you are glad that you are finally having this conversation, because you just cannot turn the diagnostics part of your brain off and you have come up with about twelve very rare and potentially fatal diseases which present with the same symptoms, and quite frankly, you would like to be able to stop worrying.

------------

You have been worrying for weeks about how to break the news to House. You know he does not like children very much and are sure he has never wanted any of his own. You are not even sure how it happened – well, you are a doctor, of course you know how it happened – but you are always very careful. So you tell him, deciding it is best to get it over with quickly, like pulling a band aid off a cut.

You are just waiting for the storm to break or alternatively, for him to retreat into one of his cold and distant moods, when he surprises you by saying, "that's a relief". You have no idea what he is talking about. He looks a bit sheepish. He adds, "I was sure you were pregnant, but when you didn't say anything, I thought you were sick and not telling me".

------------

You are lying on the couch, pretending to read the paper, while waiting to see if Allison will get round to looking in her Christmas stocking any time soon. So far, you have read yesterday's sports news approximately seven times and you still could not say with any certainty if your hockey team actually won their match or not.

If you tell her to hurry up and open it, she will just think you are being sarcastic, after the amount you teased her for wanting a stocking in the first place. At last, she stops whatever she is doing in the kitchen and comes through to the room you are sitting in. "Time for presents", she exclaims, and removes and unwraps items with torturous slowness from the stocking, revealing first a novel she wanted, then some chocolate, followed by an expensive pair of black lacy panties; she raises her eyebrows at you.

"I thought I should have something to enjoy, while you're eating the chocolate," you explain.

Finally, she removes a small square box from the toe of the stocking and examines it curiously. You do not catch her eye. You are, to all appearances, completely engrossed in the sports columns. She snaps the box open and her hand goes to her mouth. She is looking at the diamond ring as though it is an unexploded land mine. You let out a breath you did not realize you were holding.

"Aren't you going to try it on?" you ask.

------------

You figure out that James and Lisa are together before anyone else does. You do not say anything to Allison, but the penny soon drops. You are both too familiar with the tricks of hiding a relationship away. You think James would like to make her wife number four, but Lisa refuses. When he has got over her rejection he decides that she is right, with his track record it would be stupid. However, you suspect that they do get married some years later but without telling anyone. Once, when you and James are both very drunk, he refers to her as his wife, and another time, you call at their place unexpectedly and notice Lisa is wearing a wedding ring you have never seen her wear before.

------------

The two of you get into a habit of having dinner with Cuddy and Wilson on a Sunday night. At first, you feel like a child at table with the grown ups. You can just about address Wilson as James, but you certainly cannot bring yourself to call Dr Cuddy, _Lisa_, to her face, just yet. You tell yourself sternly that it is ridiculous to feel this way; you are thirty three years old, and you may be younger than them, but you are their colleague. This does not stop you feeling embarrassed when they are recalling comedy shows that aired when you were in elementary school and reminiscing over their student escapades that took place when you were approximately six years old

One night after you get back from a meal with them, you ask House, "did you ever sleep with her?" You have to know. He looks amused and a little shifty. "What do _you_ think?" he asks you. "I think you did," you say. He nods his head and tells you it was at Michigan, and therefore, ancient history now. He looks a bit worried. You say, "it's OK, I just wanted to know one way or the other."

------------

To your surprise, Dr Cuddy is very interested in your pregnancy; excited even. She has asked to see the scan pictures, never forgets to ask you how you are and has made some helpful suggestions about how to cope with the various aches and pains you have. You are working in the research department temporarily, now your fellowship is over, although House still calls you down on a consult every time he gets an interesting patient. To be honest, it is a relief not to have to work with him all day, every day, and you don't miss the paperwork.

Later, in bed, you are mulling over your conversations with Cuddy. "Do you think Cuddy ever wanted children?" you ask House. He is reading a medical journal, in Spanish, consulting a dictionary every few minutes. He doesn't look up and you don't think he's going to reply, but he does. "She wanted them, but she wanted to be Chief of Medicine more," he says.

------------

You have never seen Allison look so beautiful, or nervous. Her hands are trembling around the bouquet she is holding. But you do not comment on this, instead, when you reach the end of the aisle, you whisper in her ear, "Don't you scrub up well."

The wedding goes surprisingly smoothly, considering the bride is pregnant, your colleagues are still getting to grips with the fact you're together at all, and you and your father can barely exchange two words without it turning into an argument. He has clearly taken a liking to Allison though, and to his credit, doesn't appear to have tried to talk her out of marrying you.

James's speech goes down well; you have been secretly worried about what he would do with this ideal opportunity for point-scoring, but he is self-deprecating and most of the laughter is at his expense; as he makes sure to point out, he is the last person anyone should ask for advice on marriage.

------------

Emily arrives into the world ten days late; loud, vigorous and attention seeking right from her first breath. You laugh when you hold her, so vital and alive; it's partly relief – seeing Allison in pain has been more horrible than you ever imagined it would be, and partly that you never thought you'd be here, in this situation. She asks you what you think, and you don't have words for what you feel, so you say, "It's like a person, but smaller."

------------

House has something on his mind, but you don't press him for information. You know he will get round to telling you eventually. One night, when he gets home, you give Emily her bath and then he puts her to bed. When he reappears, he says, "I want to talk to you." He says he has decided to have his leg amputated. He has been thinking about it for some time. He has increasing referred pain in his neck, shoulders and back from more than a decade of walking with the cane, and added to the constant pain in his leg, he sees no way of retaining enough mobility without some drastic action.

You know this is true. You researched his prognosis and treatment options extensively, soon after you got together. It felt a lot like an invasion of his privacy, but you wanted to know what your long term future might hold, so you could prepare yourself.

------------

Your husband and your daughter are learning to walk together. To your amusement, House has decided to treat the selection of the best prosthetic limb as an extension of his obsession with cars, motorbikes and all things mechanical. You cannot move in your home at the moment without tripping over printouts comparing the pros and cons of crustacean versus endoskeletal shanks and publications extolling the merits of dynamic response feet for athletes.

He has his prosthetist on speed dial and is making the man's life a misery on a daily basis with difficult questions, and orders, thinly disguised as suggestions, that he might like to order exotic apparatus from whichever manufacturer House has been researching most lately. You can see already it is going to work out for him; when he had the amputation they said it would take six to twelve months for full rehabilitation potential to be achieved, but it's only been four and he has already got the walking down and is experimenting with running.

Emily takes all this in stride, so to speak, never having known anything different, and toddles around after her father, flopping onto her butt when she gets tired, and watching in fascination as he fiddles with the settings on his prosthesis. Your sitting room looks and smells like a mountain bike workshop right now, what with all the bits of hydraulic machinery, tools scattered around and the pervasive scent of WD40, but you really don't mind.

------------

You remember the last time you talked to James. If you'd known it was the last time, perhaps you wouldn't have insulted him quite so much. Oh, who are you kidding, of course you would.

------------

Allison is presenting a paper on multi-drug-resistant TB at a conference in Athens. You co-authored the paper, but only to give it a better chance of publicity; the discoveries are your wife's.

You take Emily into the hospital with you, the two days Allison is away. The first day, she goes to the daycare center. She doesn't like it too much, and you don't get off on seeing grown women cry, so the next day you take her to Diagnostics with you. You've got no exciting cases at the moment and you figure you may as well spend some time improving your daughter's Playstation skills; later, the nurses watch her while you see some clinic patients.

James comes by the clinic in the middle of the afternoon and offers to take her up to his office, where he has toys he keeps for his patients' children. It is never hard to find people to take care of Emily; only three years old and already an old hand at getting adults right where she wants them. You have taught her well.

Your final patient of the afternoon is a woman in her eighties who has a mild anemia. You write her a script for some iron tablets and get out; you think Wilson would have paged you by now if Emily was being a pain, but you don't want to push your luck. When you get to his office, he's sitting at his desk, your daughter propped up in his lap. They're both sucking on lollipops from the jar he keeps stashed away in the cupboard. They are looking at something on his computer. "We're watching Mummy," says Emily excitedly, stabbing the computer keyboard with sticky fingers. James absently removes her hand. "Greg, did you know there's a live weblink to Alli's conference?"

Actually, you didn't know that. You drag the 'bad news chair' round from the other side of the desk and put Emily on it, leaning on the back of it so you can see the screen too. Allison is half way through her speech. She looks really nervous but is covering it well; you notice she is wearing her darker-framed glasses, the ones she thinks make her look more academic.

You can only just follow what she is saying, and you read her paper, so you're not surprised when Emily starts fidgeting and kicking her legs underneath the desk. After a few minutes more, one of her flailing feet catches Wilson on the shin. You lift her up and set her on the floor. James is rubbing his leg.

"C'mon, I'm taking you home," you say.

You do not like watching Allison in front of all those conference people, anyway. It feels too much like sharing her. And that had better not have been Sebastian Charles you just saw in the audience.

You are trying to drag Emily away from the nurses' station, where they are cooing over her in a sick-making fashion, when your clinic patient walks past.

"Your granddaughter is beautiful," she comments, smiling at you.

You try to remember what Allison normally says in these situations. She has gotten really good at deflecting this sort of awkwardness without offending anyone.

"Thank you, although she's not my granddaughter, she's my daughter. I'm the poster boy for Viagra," you offer, winking at the nurse on the desk.

------------

You finally get back to your room and kick your high heeled shoes off. Your feet are killing you. In your head, you hadn't got much beyond the part where you'd get your speech over with; you'd forgotten you also had to suffer a formal lunch, where every time you managed to get a forkful of food to your mouth, someone would ask you an awkward question about funding, or enquire none too subtly if there were any job openings at PPTH.

You switch your phone back on, to find a text from House, which says, 'Nice speech. When are you back? Greg." You want to call him, but you figure out the time difference and decide not to, as you'll just make him late for work. You text back, to tell him when your flight gets in and that you'll take a cab home.

You have an hour to kill before you have to leave for the airport, so you decide to make use of the fabulous glass-walled bathroom with its huge oval bath and array of complimentary bath products. It will be a novelty to stay in the bath for more than ten minutes and not have Emily wandering in with random questions, or House moaning that you've used all the hot water. You are trying to decide between jasmine and jojoba scented bath oils from the impressive range on the countertop (also glass, how impractical), when your phone beeps again. The new message says, "I missed you, how are you going to make it up to me?"

------------

You are drinking whisky in front of the TV, while flicking through the channels trying to find something worth watching, when you hear the sound of a cab pulling up in the road outside. It's nearly ten o'clock; Emily has been in bed for a couple of hours now, and miracle of miracles, seems to plan on staying there. You bribed her with a promise she can watch cartoons tomorrow morning.

You go and open the door for Allison and you step to one side so she can walk in. She has a carry on bag in one hand and a suit holder slung across the other arm. She dumps the things on the nearest chair. Her eyes are a little red, and she has some marks on her left cheek from falling asleep in the plane seat, but she is smiling, that smile that's so innocent with just a hint of naughty, that always gets you right in the balls.

"So, I was thinking about your message," she says, taking a step towards you, looking you up and down, "and I have a few ideas." You lean around her and shove the door closed, backing her up against it. "Oh yeah?" you mumble, leaning in to put your mouth right where her neck meets her shoulder. You inhale her scent – sweat, and dry cleaned suit fabric and something fruity – jojoba it smells like – and kiss your way down to her bra, undoing her blouse as you go. You are marking her pale skin with your rough stubble, leaving a trail of red marks. She shifts and shivers against you.

------------

You would have known House missed you, even if he hadn't told you as much himself. You think to yourself that you should go away more often, as he lowers himself carefully to his knees and hitches your skirt up. You feel the heat of his mouth through your already damp panties. Distantly, you wonder if maybe you should both get out of the hallway, what with it having a window onto the driveway, but now he's got your panties off and you can't think of anything else but his tongue on your clit and his strong hands holding you up against the door. He sucks on you gently, then more roughly. You moan and he attacks you with renewed vigor.

After a few minutes of this, you think he must be all that's holding you up, because it certainly isn't your wobbly legs. He pulls himself back up, a little awkwardly, but you don't help him; you learnt a long time ago not to show you've noticed any lack of ability.

Instead, you put your arms around his neck and kiss him, deeply, savoring your own taste in his mouth, and when you come up for air, you say, "I need you in me right now," and he obliges. It is kind of painful against the door; the handle is digging into your back, there is a draught coming from the letterbox and you are conscious that even though this is much less of a problem for him these days, House will be paying for this later. Right now though, gripping onto the door frame for support, your legs wrapped around his waist, he looks pretty happy. He buries his face into your neck as he comes, murmuring the things he still rarely says out loud to you.

------------

You are both woken by a page at five in the morning, telling House to get to the ER, stat. You assume it concerns his current patient, and he leaves as soon as he can pull some clothes on. He calls you an hour later. He is hysterical and you cannot make out what he is saying. He tries again, and this time you understand, James has had a cardiac arrest. You ask your neighbor to watch Emily – you feel bad about this, you know you woke her up – but you have to get to the hospital.

It is already too late when you get there; you can see the monitor is switched off and the cyanotic tinge to James's face and neck. Lisa is sobbing in your husband's arms, and you retreat back beyond the glass wall; it is too private a moment to intrude on.

You sit down on one of the plastic chairs in the ER waiting room; this hospital used to be your second home but now it feels cold and alien. Employees you do not recognize rush past you on various errands and a child wails insistently from the far end of the room.

You must have dozed off and you wake with a start when House sits down beside you. You take his hand. It is shaking a little. He says, "He has to be buried quickly."

You know this. James has become your friend too over the last ten years, and you know his Jewish faith is…_was_ more important to him than you had first realized.

House adds, "I'm going to stay and help out. There's a lot to arrange."

You suddenly remember that Emily is still with your neighbor. You give House a quick hug, and tell him to call you if either of them need you to do anything. You have some appointments today but nothing you can't cancel. He nods. You want to say something comforting, but you can't think what, and while you are trying to think of something he stands up. You watch as he arms himself with his caustic Dr House-persona, limping off in the direction of the ER.

You drive home and retrieve your daughter. You decide not to tell her where you have been, as she is late for school already. She is over-excited because she had chocolate cereal for breakfast, which she is not normally allowed. You drop her off at school and go back home, where you spend the day trying to grade papers, and remembering all the kind things James did for you.

You hear the familiar sound of House's car in your driveway around eight that evening. Several minutes pass but he doesn't appear. Emily is doing her homework – at least, that's what she's supposed to be doing - so you go outside to see what he's up to. He is still sitting at the wheel of his car. His head is in his hands and you can see he is crying. You have never seen him cry before. You walk round the car and get into the passenger seat. You put your arms around him. You are crying too.

------------

You dither about whether to take Emily over while they are sitting Shiva, but decide that you should. You didn't take her to the funeral when House's father died, but she had only met him twice. She is now ten, and James was as near as she had to a godfather. You try to explain the Jewish customs to her before you go (you have to read up on the internet first, your only other option is to ask Lisa and you think she probably has enough to deal with right now). House has been there all week and Emily keeps asking where he is. You take a bowl of fruit and some pastries and you the pastries to Emily to hold. You know not to give her the bowl or it will get broken before it can get handed over.

You are not sure how to dress your daughter – her wardrobe is almost entirely pink at the moment but after some searching you find a pair of purple denim dungarees, which you make her put on over one of her blue t shirts. The color combination looks spectacular with her vivid red hair, and you were really trying for subdued, but you are late already, so it will have to do.

Stacy is the first person you catch sight of when you walk in the door. You have not seen her since before Emily was born. It is more of a shock than you would have expected. Her hair is a little grey at the temples and it looks like she may have had some work done on her face. You tell yourself this is a terrible thing to be thinking of right now, but as if she read your thoughts, Emily says, in a highly audible whisper, "Mummy, why doesn't that lady's face move?" You shoot Stacy an apologetic look and drag your daughter into the kitchen for a reminder about not making personal comments.

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House is working late on a case. He calls you to ask you to bring him a book he needs from home. It always feels strange to be back at PPTH. It looks much the same as it did when you worked here; it's you that's different. He is abstracted when you go into his office, where he is sitting in his chair, surrounded by a pile of journals and notes, a bottle of whisky on the low table next to him. You talk through the case for a few minutes, but he is really grouchy, so you leave him to it.

As you're leaving the hospital, you notice the light's still on in Lisa's office. You have to walk past it anyway. You don't want to disturb her, but she looks up at the sound of your footsteps, and smiles. She does look genuinely pleased to see you. You have been worried about her. She never seems to mention James any more, and you don't like to bring it up if she doesn't. You are sure House is concerned too, although he demonstrates it by being ruder to her than ever.

You go in to see her. The heaps of paper are even higher than the last time you were in here. She's working on a spreadsheet – you can see it reflected in the dark of the un-shaded window.

"Are you and Greg having some sort of competition?" you joke, "First one home's a sissy?"

She grimaces. "End of year budget outcome. It's turning my brain mushy."

"Do you want to grab a coffee or something?" you ask, diffidently. "Emily's at her friend's tonight, I'm not in a rush." Her face brightens.

"Why not?" she replies.

She gets her coat. It's a really nice coat, and you tell her so. You are heading for the café across the road from the hospital, when Lisa suddenly says, "Screw coffee." You are confused, but follow her anyway. You find yourself in a bar you haven't been in for years. In fact, you can't even remember the last time you were in a bar.

You are only going to have one drink, but it's been so long since you actually spent time with Lisa, you have forgotten what good company she is. She's going out of her way to tell you funny stories; some of them involve House – stuff he hasn't told you. In no time at all, you have both moved on from beer onto vodka and Lisa says, suddenly, out of nowhere, "The thing is, I've got nothing to show for it."

You are confused. "Nothing to show for what?"

"Life," she says, not very distinctly. "I didn't imagine it would work out like this."

She looks at you. "I turn fifty next week," she says.

You knew it was her birthday, but not that it was her fiftieth.

"But you're Dean of Medicine and PPTH's won every prize going for the last ten years. You're having to beat fellowship applicants off with a stick!" you reason with her. Your words are coming out a bit slurred.

"Yeah, but was it worth it?" Lisa says, slumping a little in her seat and picking at the label on one of the discarded bottles of beer. "As your husband never misses an opportunity to point out, I'm not a real doctor any more."

You are getting really worried now. It's not like her to be so maudlin.

"Since when do you take him so seriously? He says that to me as well!"

She looks at you, an odd expression on her face.

"She would have been eighteen this year."

Now you have no idea what she is talking about.

"I don't understand."

Lisa sighs and drains the last of her drink. "I was pregnant, when I was offered the post here. I had an abortion."

Oh no. Now a lot of things make sense to you, and not just her last remark. The shock must be written quite clearly on your face, because the next thing she says is, "I'm surprised Greg didn't tell you."

You suddenly find it hard to breathe. Your heart is pounding and the beer and vodka are churning together in your stomach. "You think he should have told me, that you and he-" you choke out. Lisa looks up, confused, then suddenly a look of stunned comprehension crosses her features.

"Good God, Allison, I wasn't implying he was the father…"

You are both, incredibly, laughing at the depth of the misunderstanding, when House walks in. The alcohol has slowed your perceptions and for a brief second, you are just admiring the handsome, older man in the dark suit and gray t shirt, before you recognize your husband. You don't think anyone but you and Lisa would even know he has an artificial leg.

"Security told me I'd find my wife in the bar, carousing with the Dean of Medicine," he says, pulling up a chair.

You look across at Lisa, whose mascara has run a bit, and pass her a tissue. She glances at you, quickly, and you know this conversation was just between the two of you.

------------

The new medication they have you on is making you feel strangely disconnected from reality. You reach across to the nightstand for your headphones; music always brings you back to yourself. Even that much effort leaves you gasping for breath. It's not working though; the Schubert impromptu just reminds you of his fatal struggle with _treponema pallidum_, so you pick another track at random; Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, and you recall he died of cirrhosis of the liver. So you switch to The Stones and that cheers you up, because Mick is older than you are, and twice as wrinkly.

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You doubt he knows you are here, but you sit with him anyway. You have lowered the blinds, but the sunset is so beautiful tonight, you half raise them again, and the sun lights the room in a reddish-orange haze. You can't tell if he is in pain or not; you authorized them to give him morphine yesterday. You figure it can't make much difference now. You hold his hand.

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You are dreaming. You know this because nothing hurts. Pain of one sort or another has been your constant companion for thirty years but it is absent now. You are sitting behind the desk in your office, the one you had at PPTH when you were Head of Diagnostic Medicine. There's an empty chair beside you, with James's jacket hanging from it; he must have stepped out for a moment. The door opens and Allison walks in, wearing a smart black interview suit and high heels, her dark hair coiled up on her head. She is backlit by the late afternoon sun and the motes of light touch the planes of her face with gold.

She says she loves you.

FIN


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